Week 56. Angel fight prep

Got warmed up with the following drills: clinch and takedown; no grip clinch and takedown.

Fist main part of learning was looking for the double leg takedown inside the opponent’s guard. Head needs to go on the belly between his elbows rather than on the outside of his torso. We worked on taking a long step and getting the ear on his belly. In some ways this is an emergency technique and good for when you are under striking pressure as a go to. The hands go on the backs of the knees but should not clasp the knees together. Instead think of continuing your forward motion and sweeping the legs out of the way. If you stop, as I did repeatedly, and then try to lift, scoop or move then the technique is much less effective. Your motion is key to this working more effortlessly and effectively.

Time for the big gloves and the phone box drill. Worked with a variety of partners exchanging blows, sometimes covered and other times not. Lee emphasised the importance of relation in the neck and shoulders. Roll with the strikes but also become more desensitised to seeing and taking them. Flinch response is a hard one to fix so the more we get used to realising we are not made of glass (quote attributed to Pete Brown) then the more we can soften those muscles of the neck and shoulders and become more effective attackers and defenders.

The drill evolved into open and closed. Closed in the phone box and open at regular free form range. Lee called open and closed at we had to assume the appropriate range.
Free form with Seb: Standing and on the ground. Painful, tough and hard as usual but getting better at moving both on my feet and on the ground.

Key words and stare down into free form rounds. Mine were and are focus and movement.
Angel’s round: In prep for his fight next weekend he did 5 rounds with Pete, Sammy, Milzy, Seb then Pete again. Videos are on YouTube on his hard work.